


The Girlfriend Subterfuge

by romanitas



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, spy AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanitas/pseuds/romanitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’m a government worker and I had to seduce you for a case but I’m starting to like you legitimately AU" </p><p>Or: Annabeth has been sent to investigate Jupiter Industries. She becomes Percy's girlfriend to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jason Grace. Son and heir apparent to Jupiter Industries, currently being slammed under tabloids under accusations of extreme corruption and possibly domestic terrorism. Not Jason, just his father – but it doesn’t mean he’s completely igorant to the goings on. He’s a possibility.

Annabeth tiptoes into his bedroom alone for the first time, out of many times over his apartment. She’s scoped it out before, gotten to know the layout. It’s neat and organized, a room after her own heart, save for the occasional sock or pair of pants. His laptop sits on the desk, closed up, and she stills, listening.

Silence.

Percy’s still sleeping. He got back a few hours ago, from a forty-eight hour shift at the station, so he’ll be out like a light for a solid amount of time.

Percy, Jason’s roommate, his friend from high school, and technically, her boyfriend. Her fingers curl into a fist, but she wouldn’t be standing here right now if she hadn’t starting talking to him over an emperor penguin at the aquarium. He volunteers, twice a week. That’s where she was told to find him.

Annabeth sits down at the desk and carefully opens Jason’s laptop. It whirs to life and she types in the password to boot it up – it honestly wasn’t that hard to figure out, with how often she’s over here and how often he talks about his girlfriend Piper. He’s with her now, fortunately.

 _Piper’s nice_ , she thinks, pulling a flash drive from her pocket and plugging it in. She clicks away at the keyboard with practiced quiet, ears open carefully as she digs around through files and folders. Spotting a PDF with Jupiter Industries in the title, she drags it into the flash drive, making herself a copy.

They went on a double date once, and she’d be hard-pressed to deny it hadn’t been fun doubleteaming the boys over – well, just about everything. It hadn’t been difficult to pretend she was having a good time. Because she was.

The laptop pulls up a lot of nothing else thus far, but there are a lot of places to keep digging. Even something as simple as an email, from father to son – there’s no telling what she might find inside. She figured out his email password already, too, so she pulls it up, skimming over subject lines and other addresses. What she really needs is to get her hands on his phone sometime – she can play the whole ‘oops, took your phone by mistake!’

They have the same phone. A move that wasn’t an accident at all – as soon as they discovered what type of phone Jason had, Annabeth was issued the exact model. Probably for exactly those reasons.

She spots his father’s name, his email – the email’s already been opened, and she drags the cursor to click it.

Footsteps. Coming down the hall.

Annabeth signs out of the email, exits, pulls up another tab – some menu to a terrible restaurant Percy mentioned the other day. She yanks out the flash drive and curls it in her palm just as someone stops outside the door.

“Annabeth?” Percy’s voice, groggy, followed by a yawn.

She looks over her shoulder, a bright smile on her face. “What are you doing up?”

He makes an incomprehensible noise, then sweeps into the room. “Why are – why are you in Jason’s room?”

She recognizes all the signs of Percy Jackson in a stage that’s not quite awake but not quite sleeping; he’s fairly observant, despite how he appears, so she’s not surprised he has the capacity to question why she’s in here. She stands up, shoving the flash drive in her pocket in the same movement. “Just wanted to look something up, but I didn’t wanna disturb you.”

He grins at her goofily. “As if you could ever disturb me.”

Her heart jumps. It startles her, though the only sign of it is internal. Her heart doesn’t  _do_  that. It’s not allowed to. Percy holds out his hand, and as the girlfriend, she takes it. As Annabeth Chase, infiltrator of lives, she’s struggling. “I hate my shifts sometimes,” he sighs, pulling her in and wrapping his arms around her.

She complies. He’s warm. It’s not the first time he’s held her by a longshot, but there’s a comfort in there she’s never felt before. “You’re the one who chose that line of work.” And really, she could be talking to herself there.

He snorts, kissing the top of her head. “Just coo and tell me I’m a hero.”

 _She_  snorts, and it surprises her how genuine the sound is. “Not happening.”

“Worth a shot.” He pulls back and steals a kiss. Her heart jumps again, even as she returns it. “I’m going back to bed,” he starts, and he sounds a little nervous. “Come with me?”

She shouldn’t. She should duck back home, coordinate with Frank. Look over that file while he sleeps – meet up with him later. “Not all of us need to sleep a million hours to catch up after work.” Naturally, she remembers passing out for twelve hours straight after a particular rough week in San Diego. Slept through three different alarms.

He can tell she’s hesitant, but he doesn’t try to make her feel bad about it. He just smiles at her. “Will you at least be here when I wake up?”

“That’s a creepy question.” The phrases rolling off her tongue today, seriously. As if she hadn’t done just that in the past with less innocuous intent. As if she hadn’t been the creeper more ways than she can count.

He sputters. It’s stupid – how she can say one tiny thing, and he just _reacts_ , so lively and open. He’s so moronically earnest. He smiles easily, and she’s starting to realize that she does things now and then with every intention of making him smile.

It’s not hard. Sometimes all she does is walk in the room and his face lights up like she’s a goddess come to life.

Maybe she’s done her job a little too well.

Percy sighs dramatically. “Two days of only quick texts and phone calls, and she doesn’t even want to stick around when I’m finally home.”

She shoves his arm. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m staying.”

And she does.

And when she’s curled up with him, his arms wrapped around her, she finds it far too comfortable a position. She never sleeps easily when she sleeps over, but today is the first time she feels safe. Annabeth looks up at his face, his mouth wide open with the occasional snore breaking the silence, his hair a complete disaster after the long shift and immediate transit into bed –

Get close to Percy Jackson, get into Jason Grace’s life. That was all she had to do.

Watching him sleep, there’s a smile slipping on her face, and she actually reaches out to brush the hair from his eyes. He’s so stupid. He’s an idiot who makes too many bad puns, and maybe he’s a good cook, but he still has a pillow pet on his bed, his organization is nonexistent and his space a disaster, and he plunders through life far too impulsively. Far too trustingly.

He trusted her without batting an eye.

She could kill him in his sleep. Right now.

Except for the part where she couldn’t at all – because something has gone terribly, awfully wrong, and he’s grown on her. Like a fungus. She likes the guy.

Maybe a little too much.

This is, most definitely, not part of the job. 


	2. Chapter 2

His favorite exhibit is the penguins. The dolphins, too, but she already checked there. Annabeth takes a seat on the bench, sunglasses hiding her gaze, hair swept up into a ponytail.

Her outfit is carefully constructed. The blouse is a shade of purple that perfectly matches her eyes, the collar low enough to be flirty but high enough to not reveal anything. Her jeans hug her hips at a flattering angle, and her purse hangs easily over her shoulder.

She spots him, after about five minutes. He’s talking animatedly to a couple of kids, pointing and gesturing at the penguins with a smile on his face. His shirt is too wrinkled, he’s got a shoelace untied, and his hair is windswept in the worst way.

Annabeth wrinkles her nose. She knows the signs of a messy person, and she hopes upon hope that Percy Jackson is tolerable. After another minute, she stands up and slowly makes her way over to the tank. They’re actually pretty cute, swimming around. She takes some time, looking forward at the tank with her head, but her eyes are watching Jackson, waiting for him to finish up his little chat with the kids.

Finally, he waves as they walk away, then peers around at the crowd. Looking for anyone who needs help, most likely.

One second. Two. Three. She pulls the sunglasses to the top of her head and squints at the water, like she’s trying to figure something out. Out of the corner of her vision, she spots him sauntering by, and she steps back into his path. She looks at him squarely, holds herself loosely, and gives him a bit of a smile.

“Are there any babies?”

He beams at her. “Not right now. The chicks are usually born in May or June.”

“So I come back in two months, baby penguins?”

He scratches his chin. “Nope. The eggs have to incubate – it’s the eggs that are born first, technically.”

“The males do that part, right? Incubate?”

He looks pleased she knows that already. She knows a lot of things about penguins already, simply because she has a thirst for knowledge and definitely spent the other night reading over articles until three in the morning, just because she knew this interaction was coming. She’s supposed to be asking  _him_  questions, but it doesn’t mean she can’t be prepared to steer the conversation.

He starts explaining the process – it’s not in the most scientific way, but she supposes that’s why he’s only a volunteer and not a full time employee. No, his real job is a firefighter – which, honestly, is pretty perfect, provided she actually  _gets_  access to his apartment. To Jason Grace’s apartment.

“How do you know so much about penguins?”

His grin turns sheepish, maybe a little embarrassed. “School.”

Annabeth already knows he didn’t finish. That he dropped out his sophomore year, got a job. Eventually that turned into his current employment at the firehouse. “Well,  _I_  learned something today,” she lies, but it’s airy and flirty and her tone is imbibed with honesty.

He looks a little confused, mouth opened just enough to make him look like an idiot. Percy is the type of person she’d probably not spend a second glance looking over. Today her job is to give him several once overs. “I’m Annabeth. Do you work here?” she asks, filling her tone with genuine curiosity.

He shakes his head. “Percy. Just a volunteer.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I was going to use that as an excuse to come back.”

He blinks. “Uh. Well, Saturdays have cheaper admission?”

Okay, not only does he look like an idiot, he probably is one too. Either that, or not many people have tried to hit on him in the past. His response baffles her enough that she doesn’t reply right away, wondering if the effort involved in this is going to be worth getting a better look into Jason Grace’s life. “Are you here on Saturdays?”

“Sometimes.” There’s an upward inflection – it’s not quite a question, but close enough. He doesn’t get why she’s asking, how it relates to admission prices. She’d give up right now, if getting him to agree on a date wasn’t the whole purpose of today.

“Are you here  _this_  Saturday?”

“No?”

This is the point where she’d walk away in frustration. The fact that she _can’t_  is making her even more frustrated, but she just smiles sweetly at him. “Does that mean you’re free on Saturday?”

The confused look on his face might be endearing if it wasn’t so freaking annoying. “Are you looking to volunteer too…?”

“I’m  _looking_  to see if you’re free for a coffee sometime, but you’re being obtuse.” Wrong move. He’s going to brush her off now, but there’s only so much Annabeth can take, for the sake of her pride. She starts calculating the report in her head, prepared in detail to explain how Percy Jackson sidestepped every single hint about a date just to make herself feel better. It’s not her failure.

Instead, he surprises her. He laughs. His cheeks go a little red, and he looks a combination of awkward and flattered. “Oh. Uh. Well - I’m not much of a coffee person.”

She’s done. She gives up. Someone else can handle this. Annabeth sighs quietly and frowns, waving her hand. “Fine, forget –”

He grabs her hand midair, like he doesn’t want her to walk off. And then he turns even redder. “No! No, I mean – I like smoothies?” He pauses. “There’s a Jamba Juice a couple blocks away. If, um, that’s okay with you.”

She blinks at him in her own surprise. Then glances at his hand – when he notices where she’s looking, he immediately pulls back and holds up his arms apologetically. Annabeth smiles at him, and maybe some of it is legit, but mostly it’s part of the job. “I like the Strawberry Whirl.”

Percy grins at her goofily. “I’ll remember that.”

And when they meet later that day, after his volunteering is up, he orders her a Strawberry Whirl without hesitation. They make plans to catch lunch the next day, right before his shift.

Step one, achieved.


	3. Chapter 3

Annabeth has officially been dating Percy for one and a half weeks. She doesn’t count the first couple of coffees as dating – it’s only when he asks her out for a second dinner date does she consider it progress of the best kind. The second dinner date is also when she “officially” finds out where he lives, and wow, what a coincidence! Her apartment is only about ten blocks away!

It’s not. The agency put her there entirely on purpose. She could probably stand to do a little redecorating, but she’s always been fond of minimalism. Maybe she can get away with some kind of extreme minimalist theme, for whenever Percy inevitably, hopefully, comes over. It’s not her real home though, just a temporary lodgings. Like a hotel. Sometimes she feels like she stays in hotels more than her own place.

On the way back from dinner, the sky opens up and soaks them through pretty much right away. Preparation meant she’d looked at the weather, and normally that means an umbrella – but the flipside of preparation means having every intent of getting caught in the rain.

They duck under a terrace, right across from his apartment building. He shuffles nervously from foot to foot. She can already tell what he’s going to ask, and she wishes he’d just get on with it. She’s starting to shiver.

“Do you – wanna come up? I mean – I mean, like, to get out of the rain!” He corrects himself quickly and maybe a little endearingly, trying always to be the gentleman, even when he messes up. “I’m not trying to – you know, imply anything – but I have towels and stuff.”

_Towels and stuff_. She twists her expression into something amused, even though she still can’t believe what an idiot he is. “No, I get it – its fine. I could really use a towel and stuff.”

He beams at her. “Race you!” Only he doesn’t wait for her response – just takes off and sprints across the street, leaving her no choice but to chase after him. She should probably let him win, as part of warming him up to her, but the competitive spark inside her refuses. Even in her heels, she catches up to and then passes him with ease, even giving him a flirty wave as she reaches the apartment building before him. She’s grinning, genuinely, with her victory – which is stupid, because of course she can beat him. She’s in top physical shape.

But then again, he  _is_  a firefighter. He probably is too. “Cheater,” he says, even though she clearly didn’t, and he gives her a kiss on the cheek before taking her up to the third floor.

Her first step into the apartment is joined by immediate casing of the room. It’s a short hallway that opens up into their kitchen, which is surprisingly neat and organized from all she’s gathered about Percy Jackson thus far. He takes her through the living room, a step around the kitchen countertop – a couch and a chair, a small coffee table and a ratty old poster from some action movie called the  _King of Sparta_. Off the living room is a hallway, and Percy stops her outside a closet door. He pulls out a towel and drapes it around her shoulders like a cape. She smiles at him gratefully, but steals glances around her – three more doors, all of them closed. Two bedrooms, a bathroom? Probably. There’s a dumb whiteboard in the shape of a penguin hanging on the door furthest down – there’s no way that isn’t Percy’s room.

Percy notices her looking. He’s more observant than she’s given him credit for. “C’mon,” he says, opening the door to his own room. It’s almost a total disaster – almost, because it looks like the piles of clothes are at least organized, and the sheet’s pulled up like he tried to make the bed. “My room, uh – sorry for the mess.”

She notices he doesn’t say it’s not normally like this, which tells her every single theory about him being messy has just been proven one hundred percent. But right now, she’s more curious about Jason’s room, wondering if Percy’ll take her in there with the impromptu tour.

The front door opens, and Percy jumps. Annabeth raises an eyebrow at him, but he just takes her hand and pulls her out of the room.

In the kitchen, hanging a set of keys on a hook by the door, is a blonde man. He’s a little taller than Percy, with a set of glasses perched on his nose. Annabeth has seen him before, in photos, but as far as everyone in the room is concerned, she has no idea who he is. So she settles an expression of mild curiosity on her face.

Jason sees them together and his lip twitches. “Sorry, didn’t realize you had company.”

Percy’s face goes red. “No. No! Shut up,” he lets go of her hand and crosses his arms. “Annabeth, this is Jason. Jason, Annabeth.”

He grins at her and offers out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you at last, Annabeth. Face to the name and all that.”

She shakes his hand. His grip is firm but not testing, and Jason meets her gaze evenly. She feels a thrill of victory in the handshake; she’s one step closer to her goals. If she can get Percy to like and trust her so easily, surely she can do the same of Jason. “Am I a popular name?”

He snorts as he pulls his hand away, leaning on the countertop. “You have no idea. I can barely get in a word with this guy lately. It’s always _Annabeth this_ , or  _Annabeth that_.”

Percy punches him in the arm, his entire face lit up like an embarrassed sun. It tells Annabeth that on some level, he’s not lying. That Percy really does talk about her a lot. It’s a little flattering, before she remembers that’s the entire point of what she’s doing with him right now. To get him to like and trust her. Percy just sulks. “Jason’s full of crap.”

“ ‘She’s so  _cool_ , Jason,’ ‘She’s really smart and loves a good pizza,’ ‘She’ –” Jason’s interrupted by Percy nearly tackling him to the ground, shoving his hand up over his mouth and face.

Annabeth laughs. It’s not even calculated. They’re idiots. They’re both twentysomething idiots, and she can’t believe how legitimately amused she is right now. Her second thought is how easy it’s going to be to win Jason over, too.

They both freeze in place, though only Percy’s face is still red. “I can see why you’re roommates,” she says breezily, as Percy extradites himself from his friend.

“I’d like to apologize on behalf of his idiocy,” he grumbles.

Jason pats him on the head. “Sorry, man, this is payback for the first time I brought Piper over.”

Annabeth looks to him, curious. There’s a name she hasn’t heard before, in all the files. Then again, she’s already been told Jason is a very private person – he doesn’t really do much with his father’s company and much prefers to keep out of the spotlight. Public records are one thing – personal matters are another. “Who’s Piper?” she asks, taking care to look direct at Percy. It’s a chance to show she’s on his side, and with the look on her face, something like conspiracy, there’s no way he won’t give her the answer she wants.

He looks pleased the conversation’s shifted from him and his embarrassing flailing towards his roommate. “Jason’s girlfriend, of course. Piper McLean,” he says, with a subtle emphasis on the last name.

Annabeth frowns; it’s a reference she feels like she should pick up on, though it’s not an uncommon name. But then she just smiles at them both. “She must be something, if she can put up with the both of you.”

“Hey!”

Jason chuckles. “She’s pretty great.” His phone beeps in his pocket, and he pulls it out to read a text. “Speaking of, she wants me to come over. Uh, good to meet you at last, really Annabeth. We’ll have to have you over for dinner sometime.”

She smiles, even as she’s memorized the make and model of his phone. “Sounds like a plan.”

He bumps fists with Percy, grabs an umbrella from behind the door, and then Jason’s gone, nearly as quickly as he came. As Percy turns back to her, smiling sheepishly, Annabeth can’t help but think her first excursion into their apartment went a lot better than she anticipated. She’s anxious to rush back home and report her progress, but good girlfriend manners dictate she stick around for a while. “Mind if I wait for the rain to settle, before heading home?”

Percy beams at her. “Sure! I mean, no, I don’t mind. It’s fine. We can screw with Jason’s Netflix recommendations.”

For the second time today, Annabeth is surprised by the sound of her own laughter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> introducing: sally jackson

He wants to take her to see his mom.

Annabeth already knows her name. Sally Jackson-Blowfis, married to Paul Jackson-Blowfis several years ago. When she got the details on Percy, there were some bits and pieces on his mother – the usual sort of background information, including the tidbit of his biological father largely being out of the picture. Of course, Percy talks about his mom with adorably embarrassing enthusiasm. He makes sure to swing by her apartment at least once a week. And this week, he’s invited her to tag along.

She’s got a deluge of excuses lined up to decline, because she knows she should. Meeting his mother? That’s too much like a step in a real relationship for Annabeth to be comfortable with. The weird part, however, is that a part of her actually  _wants_  to. It has absolutely nothing to do with Jason, or Jupiter Industries, but she finds herself agreeing to go over for a Sunday dinner. It’s so grossly cliché and cheesy.

The worst part is, she wants to  _impress_  Sally. Doubly so after the very first words they exchange.

“Annabeth!” Sally says, with the warmest smile on her face. She even goes in for a hug, that Annabeth has to return, unless she wants it to get awkward. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! Percy’s told me so much!”

She looks at him and raises an eyebrow, but Percy just sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. It’s not a surprise. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d called his mom immediately after their first jamba juice. They’re close, but it’s not a creepy, oedipal close – they mean a lot to one another. Percy had difficulties in school, problems he couldn’t have dealt with if not for his mother, and he’d drop everything for her now if she so much as got a paper cut. They have few secrets, not like her, with her whole relationship based on a secret. Sally is kind and honest, welcoming to a fault. And from the way Sally looks at her, Annabeth feels like she’s already made that good impression.

Which, for some reason, makes her feel guilty for the first time since this whole thing started. Like, really, actually guilty – not a fleeting moment where she felt kinda bad for Percy. It’s the kind of guilt that makes her second guess the whole ordeal. Sally Jackson is that sort of person. She doesn’t want to do bad by her.

And her cookies are amazing.

“Told you so,” Percy grins at her, shoving a blue cookie in his mouth. She elbows him in the side, smiling as she takes another bite and drops blue crumbs down her chin, onto her shirt. She’s never felt so welcomed in a home before. To think, she almost spent the evening alone in her empty apartment, going over case files.

She has to stop there. She can’t go prioritizing – whatever this is over work. She wouldn’t even  _be_  here if not for work. She came because a continual avoidance of meeting Percy’s mother would have been bad girlfriend form, and staying in this relationship is necessary.  _Something_  is going on at Jupiter Industries, and she needs to help find out what.

Annabeth looks over at Percy, the smile on his face as he talks to his mother, and that guilt intensifies, just a little. She needs to finish the job and get out of their lives, before she gets in far too deep. She can’t let the way Sally smiles at her warmly while offering over the plate of chicken deter her.

She eats the food, laughs at right moments, double teams Percy with Sally to tease him mercilessly. Typical girlfriend stuff, right? She’s got this down to an art. She’s won over his mother just as easily as him.

But the time Annabeth leaves, Sally has put her number into her phone and made her promise to call if she never needs anything, least of all with Percy himself. If Annabeth has anything to do with it, she’ll never dial it once. She’s starting to feel like too much damage in a hurricane. Or maybe a slow building flood, where nobody realizes how rough and disastrous the water’s going to be till it’s over. She can’t let them get too attached to her.

She’s always been prepared to do heavy things, occasionally violent things and shady things – but she’s starting to think poisoning this family is going to be a line she can’t cross.

She needs to find what she’s looking for in Jason and get out, fast.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> percy pov ahead!

Percy has no idea what he’s done to have someone like Annabeth in his life, but he’ll thank every god from every possible pantheon for it. She’s amazing. She’s smart, she’s clever – she genuinely laughs at his jokes, even when she tries to pretend she hates them. The best part of it all is yeah, they’re dating, but she feels like a  _friend_. Like even though they go on dates and whenever she kisses him his head spins, all the tiny things he keeps learning about her feel important enough beyond that thrill of romance. He’d as soon challenge her to a round of Mario Kart as stumble his way through taking her out to dinner.

A month into knowing her, she feels like best friend material. The more she looks at him like he’s an idiot, the more he smiles.

He’d call it perfect, if he didn’t pick up on some weird, little things.

It’s easy to brush off at first, when they’re still getting to know each other. Her eyes are sharp. She doesn’t miss anything. She doesn’t stop looking around, which, okay, yeah – he can understand that with his ADHD. He keeps a pen on him most days, just to have something to fiddle with when he needs it. But the more he watches Annabeth watch her surroundings, the more he realizes how calculated she is. Like she’s trying to memorize everything she sees.

“What are you looking at?”

She turns away from the kitchen back to him on the couch. “Sorry, it looked like there was a new doodle up there.” There is, but he saw her looking at it before. He forgets stuff like that all the time though, so he doesn’t push it.

The first time he finds her in Jason’s room isn’t weird. He’d been passed out, she didn’t want to disturb him. It’s not that she goes in there  _often_ , but it strikes him odd when he catches her in there, or even catches her looking inside one second too long.

She asks a lot of questions about Jason, too. In the beginning, it was all part of the whole ‘new to each other’s life thing.’ But she asks him stuff like, “When’s the last time he even saw his dad?” or “Does he go to his dad’s company much? Doesn’t seem like it.”

There’s nothing obviously weird about it. It only comes up when they’re already talking about Jason. But there’s a spark of curiosity in her tone that strikes Percy as off.  Her smile is distracting, but he never really forgets. It’s not that he’s worried about her running off with Jason or anything, but the more she asks about him, the more he notices, the more he registers each question and remembers all the ones she’s asked before.  

“You sure ask a lot about Jason,” he comments one day, not thinking too deeply on the why.

She freezes, then tries for a confused grin. For a second it looks like he caught her in the act of – something, but she just shrugs. “It’s not every day you meet a guy ready to tap into a fortune 500. Don’t worry, you’re still my favorite.”

Annabeth knows just what to say to make him feel warm and bubbly like a teenager all over again.

About two months into their relationship, it abruptly hits him that she’s never asked him to come over to her apartment. He knows it’s about ten blocks from his own place, but he can’t even remember getting the street her building is on. He’d teasingly asked her once if he could meet her after work one day and cook her dinner, but she’d said they were painting, that the kitchen and hall were a disaster.

She’s nose deep in a book on his couch, legs stretched across his when he just blurts it out. “How come you never ask me over?”

She stiffens and looks up over the page. “What?”

His ears go red. He doesn’t want to, like, be pushy or anything, but she’s spent so much time here with him and it’s  _weird_  that he has no idea where she lives. “I just – I mean, I’m not asking to. I just realized I’ve never seen your place before.”

She offers him an apologetic smile. “It’s my roommate. She’s not all that comfortable with having guys over lately, and I don’t want to push her.”

Percy nods. He can support that. It’d be stupid not to. It’s only later when he kisses her goodbye that he remembers his girlfriend offhandedly explaining to Piper that she lives alone, that she’s always liked her privacy. He scrunches up his face as the door shuts behind her. Did she get a roommate recently? How long ago was that conversation with Piper? Has she even mentioned the roomie’s name? (It’s Silena, he finds out the next day.)

He  _knows_  Annabeth likes her privacy, but he’s starting to realize there are gaps in what else he knows about her. Strange gaps that feel like they should be common knowledge.

He knows she’s in love with architecture. She works at a firm, some low level entry job, but she wants to work her way up. Or did she start as an intern and move up to something a little better after she graduated? He feels like he got both stories. She’d accidentally left some rough sketches for plans in his room once, and even though the technical detail went over his head, Percy could tell how good she was.

He’d told her so, told her she was amazing and that she deserved to be in charge of her own company one day. She looked overwhelmed for a second, even sad, but then she’d kissed him and he just took it as a good sign.

She’s got a thing for owls. There’s one owl charm on her keys, and she has a set of earrings she wears more often than any others. He bought her a stuffed owl one day, shoving it in her face when she’d shown up at his house for their date, and she’d cradled it like no one had ever given her a stuffed animal before. Sometimes she brings it with her when she stays over, but it matches his stuffed octopus, so how could he possibly complain? After he tells her the octopus is called Bob, she decides to name her owl Nike, and Jason just laughs at them both good-naturedly.

He knows she’s got a dad in California, with a stepmom and two half-brothers. Her mom’s some academic bigwig – they don’t talk much, but they aren’t totally estranged. It’s clear she doesn’t like talking about any of them though, so Percy doesn’t push. He just invites her to spend time with his mom instead, but Annabeth seems to like that for the most part, so he thinks he’s doing okay.

He calls her up for a lunch date one afternoon while she’s at work, about three months into dating. She meets him at a café, smiling as she hurries in late. He teases her, because usually he’s the one running in, but she looks vaguely disheveled, and he’d be lying if he didn’t say it was an attractive change from her usual immaculate composure.

“So where’s your building?” he asks with a goofy smile, not really thinking about it, too busy looking over the menu for some kind of blue tea or coffee. Does hot chocolate come in blue?

Her hand tenses in his, and her response is silence. “Um.”

“What?”

“It’s… around the block,” she offers, which isn’t really an answer, but the barista calls them up to order, and Percy’s attention shifts.

By the time their lunch date is over, he’s draining the last of his (sadly, not blue) hot chocolate when he realizes she never did answer where her building was. He’s off for the rest of the day, so he decides to take a walk around said block, maybe try to find the place. But as he searches the names and entranceways, no matter how hard he digs in his memory, he can’t recall the company she works for. “Probably has some stupid acronym,” he says, brushing it off. There’s no way she wouldn’t have told him.

He comes off a forty-eight hour shift one day to find her dozing on the couch. It’s not weird. They’ve been together for over five months now, and he told her a while ago she was welcome any time. Annabeth has taken him up on that offer plenty.

Right now she’s snuggled up with Nike, and she looks at peace. Percy’s loathe to disturb her, so he just drops a blanket over her and yawns, chugging a glass of water before he heads to his room to take his own nap.

When he finally wakes up, she’s in Jason’s room using his computer again, and there are a lot of marquee words and colors he’s not used to. “Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to – ” she jerks in the middle of his sentence, and he raises an eyebrow without pausing, “- sleep so long.”

Annabeth smiles at him. “It’s fine. I’ve been working on some plans for work, I just left my own laptop at home.”

Painting houses? The last time he saw her design stuff, it was all sketchy and beautiful, not linear and hell on his eyes. But his priorities are elsewhere. “C’mon, let’s go find dinner.”

“It’s 10pm,” she says, pulling out her flash drive. Her hands move quickly over the entire keyboard, and the screen flashes too fast for him to process what’s going on.

“And I’m hungry, so who cares?”

She rolls her eyes, but it’s Manhattan and there’s always a pizza place open, so they order a pie. Her favorite topping is olives, and she likes fizzy water more than soda. No matter how much he knows and remembers about her though, he feels like there’s just as much left to learn and just as much he hasn’t discovered.

Not that he’d mind an endless quest of discovery with Annabeth, but sometimes it feels like she’s holding too much back. It scares him, in a way, because when he really sits and thinks about it, he wants this to work out in the long run with her, more than just about anything. Percy isn’t stupid, his eyes are sharp the same as hers, and everyone is allowed their secrets and privacy. He would never dream of pushing her for information she doesn’t want to offer. But as much as he’s coming to care about her so hard and deeply, it’s all these little things building and building, the mystery about her that’s as intriguing as it is worrisome, that stops him from taking a deeper plunge.

He wants to be someone she can trust, implicitly, and he wants to have that same trust in her in return.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fancy party time with about a million cliches alongside it because why not

She gets the news from the agency as soon as the initial party guest list is printed. Jupiter Industries is hosting a gala, inside the company. Though they’ve got informants inside already, none of them are actual spies. It’s the perfect opportunity for Annabeth to do some of her own snooping, provided she can get Jason to invite her to go. And Percy, of course, which means turning it into some sort of fancy double date with Piper as the fourth.

She drops the idea to Percy first, about the possibility of a nice evening out, with the four of them. His excitement is encouraging, and she overhears him mentioning it to Jason the next day. Annabeth goes to Piper about it herself, talking about what she might want to do (dropping hints about possible fancy dress, maybe something none of them have ever done before). She subtly works all three of them, pushing each of them in the direction of the gala. When Jason complains about the party two weeks later, Piper’s eyes light up.

“What about that?” she asks, looking around between all four of them. “I mean, I know, I know -  _Jupiter Industries_ , don’t really talk to your dad – but c’mon. How else are any of us gonna afford something like that? You’re sitting on a free invite! We can go be totally out of our elements, it’ll be great!”

Annabeth makes a show of rolling her eyes and reluctance, but by the time she and Piper leave, all four of them have agreed to give the whole gala thing a chance. She conveys the plan to her superiors as soon as she gets home.

The night of the gala itself, Annabeth’s dress is all it needs to be. The skirt is loose, coming down to just below her knees, allowing her to keep a knife strapped underneath. The fabric doesn’t pull, it’s not too tight; it lets her move around easily, and she’s in a classy pair of flats with traction. Her earrings are long and dangly and hold a small microphone, ready to transmit to Reyna in the next building over as soon as she presses the on/off switch at the top of it. It helps too, the way Percy can’t keep his eyes off her; the smugness of her feelings is shared with genuine flattery, the occasional spike in heart rate when she catches him staring in the most enamored ways possible.

_Get a hold of yourself_. It’s a warning she’s been giving more and more often lately, to less effectiveness every time.

Once inside, the four of them shuffle around awkwardly. Jason might be the heir to the company, but he looks the most uncomfortable here. He relies on Piper, who does her best – consciously – to draw attention to herself over him. Annabeth thinks they must have planned this out ahead of time. Percy, however, looks the most out of place. It’s not hard to tell this isn’t his usual scene, this isn’t his usual crowd. The only time he seems at ease is when he’s talking to her, or when she’s holding on to his arm.

She smiles at him, genuinely, in hopes of settling him further. “Think we’ll get a look at Jason’s elusive dad?”

Percy snorts. “We probably have a better chance of seeing him than Jason himself does.”

Annabeth’s not surprised by the answer. Throughout her time invading these boys’ lives, she already realized that Jason and his father don’t have the best of relationships. He spent his childhood years mostly in boarding schools, sometimes never even coming home for the holidays. Jason even has a  _sister_ , who bailed and dropped out of school at fifteen. The agency is currently in the process of tracking her down – Jason shrugged and said she liked to travel, but she keeps in touch and usually swings by for Christmas.

“Should we punch the guy for him?” she asks.

Percy grins. “We should probably let Jason take care of that on his own.”

Annabeth cases the room on Percy’s arm. She’s got a little camera in her necklace, if she needs to get anything on record. She fiddles with the charm and turns it on, catching the faces of guests as she leads her date around. They stop for food, which suits Annabeth just fine; she finds an exit, tucked away behind a pillar, and if the building plans are up to date, there’s a stairway right behind it that leads to some of the upper office rooms. Now she just needs to get away from Percy.

Which suddenly doesn’t feel like something she wants to do. She likes being on his arm. She likes when his hand moves to the small of her back, quietly and gently steering her where he wants to go. And when she does the same, tugs on his sleeve, pulls at his arm, he complies without questioning it.

To push herself into doing her actual job, she turns on the earpiece and starts transmission. “Hey, if you see Piper, tell her I ran to the bathroom, okay? I can’t wait anymore.”

Percy nods, his mouth full of cake, as Annabeth reluctantly detaches herself from him. As she walks away, she feels like everyone is staring at her, like everyone knows exactly what she’s doing. It’s stupid, because literally no one even spares her a second glance. She’d dressed down (but appropriate for the occasion) for a reason. Today is not a day to draw attention to herself.

There are security cameras everywhere. But they planned for this. As soon as she gives the signal, Leo on the other end is prepared to scramble with the footage. She reaches the pillar and mutters the key word to Reyna. Counts to ten. She has to trust in Leo’s abilities, but it’s nerve-wracking. After twelve seconds, she hears Reyna give the all clear and Annabeth pushes through the door and slips in without anyone noticing.

It’s funny how being here, in far more danger, feels safer than being with Percy. At least here she doesn’t have to pretend anything.

“Okay, Reyna, I’m going up.”

She moves swiftly and quietly under Reyna’s guidance, finding the targeted office. If Leo’s system fails, everything will be over tonight. The thought makes her weirdly morose; she doesn’t want it to be over. She doesn’t want to stop being in Percy’s life, in Piper’s or Jason’s. But that’s impossible. It’ll have to end eventually – she’s only here under false pretenses.

She slides and boots up a computer, connecting to it with another piece of Leo tech. She doesn’t have the time to personally read everything over, so she just starts loading up files onto the external storage. While it runs on its own, she takes a look around the office, skimming through files and images and anything else that catches her attention, mumbling quietly to Reyna a play-by-play. The camera runs all the while, because she doesn’t have enough time to look over everything immediately at more than a quick glance. She is, technically, still just on a bathroom break – and Piper could very well come looking for her.

It beeps at her, and she hurries back over to the computer. She blinks at the screen in mild confusion.

“ _Annabeth? What is it_?” Reyna asks.

“I’m not sure. An external source…? It looks like someone else might be getting into the systems, too.”

Before she has too much time to think it over, a door opens on the floor. She yanks out her tools and shuts the monitor off, diving under the desk. Her skirt rides up, but she’s totally hidden should someone peer into the room. She doesn’t move. She’s good at this part. But she thinks about getting caught anyway, thinks about Percy.

She really needs to stop thinking about Percy.

When the coast is clear and Reyna says the same of her exit route, Annabeth slips out, properly turning off the computer and shoving all her tools back into her purse. She heads back for the stairs quickly, taking them two at a time down three flights. Deciding against heels tonight was a fantastic idea.

At the bottom floor, she takes a moment to compose herself. She straightens her skirt. She takes a long hallway to find another door to reenter the main room. “I’m not sure how much we got,” she tells Reyna quietly. “Want me to do a pass off to get to it faster? You’ve got someone else in here, right?”

“ _Yes, one of the caterers. She’s wearing your exact same earrings_.”

“All right, I’ll look for her.”

As soon as she steps through the door, she runs straight into Percy.

“Woah!” He catches her by the arms, and her heart skips. He blinks at her with concern. “There you are!”

“Here I am,” she says airily. She doesn’t have enough to go on yet to assess a better response.

“Piper went to find you in the bathroom, but you disappeared.”

Annabeth sighs. The relief isn’t faked. “Sorry, I got kinda lost.”

Percy raises an eyebrow at her. “Lost, or distracted?” And he glances upward, at the arches of the ceiling.

Next to her real job, architecture is her passion. Since finding out, Percy’s literally never forgotten, and he incorporates it into spending time with her whenever he gets the chance. She smiles at him. “Both?”

“Then I gotta tell you,” he starts, weaving one hand down to take hers. “I found the  _coolest_  terrace.”

She smiles. “Lemme guess, you wanna show me.”

“Naw, I thought I’d just kinda dump you there. Take turns and all that.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “I just want some water first.”

“Allow me,” he says. But she does. And she watches him head back for the food table with a slight skip to his step, and she wonders if it’s because of her.

“ _Chase_.”

“I’m here.”

“ _Yes, I heard. Please don’t stay on the terrace too long. There’s still plenty for you to do inside_.”

“I’m not stupid, Reyna,” she says quietly, with stunted defensiveness. “I can’t exactly say no to my  _boyfriend_  springing a surprise on me.”

“ _That’s why I said make it quick_.”

“I’ll make it as quick as I can, but I can’t guarantee –”

“Uh, Annabeth?” It’s Percy. Annabeth freezes and looks at him awkwardly. “Who’re you talking to?”

She smiles in what she hopes is embarrassment, before remembering ‘embarrassed’ isn’t really in her modus operandi. Not even with dating the man in front of her. “I was trying to figure something out. Talking to myself out loud.”

Percy snorts and she raises an eyebrow. He hands over a glass of water, grinning at her. “You do that all the time. Was it the abacus?” He points up with the question, at an actual abacus on the ceiling.

Her mouth drops. “How did you know what that was?”

“Um, I hang out with you. Apparently that means I gotta learn _some_  stuff.”

She smiles in spite of herself and downs a gulp of water. He takes that as a good sign and takes her hand, gently pulling her to another room and outside onto the aforementioned terrace.

And she’s gotta admit: it’s pretty nice. It’s small, quiet, with enough room for only a handful of people, but the two of them are totally alone. Annabeth’s gaze is drawn right away to the view, to the lights of the Upper East Side; it’s not mind-blowing that Jupiter Industries’ headquarters is here, but it’s weird to find herself standing in the middle of it.

“I bet you could make a building here one day.”

Her gaze shifts from the view to Percy’s face, but he’s not even looking at her. He’s staring out over the terrace, his face a mix of awe and discomfort. It’s not a surprise. They’re in one of the wealthiest areas of the city, and the Jackson family comes from poverty. She squeezes his hand, and he turns to look at her. The moment their eyes meet, he smiles goofily at her.

“Not here,” she says. “I’ll put a building somewhere they’ll need it.”

He beams at her, then slowly, tentatively leans in closer for a kiss. He doesn’t do it himself though, waiting for her to close the gap. And she does. She slides her free hand up and cups his cheek, kissing him a little harder than she means to. For a moment, nothing else is there besides Percy Jackson in front of her, his hand at the small of her back, and his lips against hers. The skyline doesn’t even exist anymore. Her job isn’t important. It’s just him. It’s the most amazing kiss she’s ever shared with him – probably because it doesn’t feel like she’s doing it out of obligation or duty. She just wants to. It’s the most she’s ever wanted to kiss him.

By the time she pulls away, she’s a little short on breath as reality comes crashing back down. She abruptly remembers Reyna can still hear everything over the microphone, that she’s standing on a terrace in Jupiter Industries with the guy she won over to get there, that she still has a drop-off to complete.

Percy suddenly looks anxious. “Um, you okay?”

It’s showing in her face. He’s getting too good at reading her – or maybe he’s always been better at it than she’s given him credit for. She kisses him again, once, both in hopes of being a distraction and in creating an image. “I’m fine. This is perfect up here, Percy.”

He kisses her on the forehead and wraps his arms around her. She lets herself go with it and closes her eyes. Just for a moment, she can be in a place where this relationship is  _real_ , where Percy cares about her, and she cares about him.

He does though. He cares about her so much already. It’s in the way he looks at her, talks to her, every little thing he does. She’d be an idiot to ignore it. “Hey, Annabeth,” he says, tilting her head up. The next thing he says spins her entire world on its axis, and it’s not even a whole sentence. “Um. I think I, uh.”

Something freezes and melts inside her at once, the sensation all too new and too scary. She knows what he’s going to say. She should put a stop to it – whether it’s kissing him again, or pretending to be cold. Something, anything, but she’s running out of time and –

“I love you, Annabeth.”

– And she wanted to hear it. She wanted to hear him say it, even though Reyna is still listening, and how she reacts could very well get her kicked off the case. She doesn’t want to get kicked off. She doesn’t want to stop being with him.

It slams into her full force in a way she can’t crawl out of or avoid, like her heart’s been drowned in tar.

Shit.

_Shit_.

She’s in love with him too.

She’s in love with Percy Jackson and all his stupid endearing qualities.

She kisses him, to save herself the trouble of a vocal response. It’s probably not the best idea, kissing someone after they’ve just confessed their love, after realizing she’s every bit as in love back, but she doesn’t know how to handle the logic of this situation right now.

“I need to go inside,” she says at last, her pulse off the charts. “It’s nothing you did, I swear.”

Percy nods at her, looking like he doesn’t quite believe her but he’s concerned anyway. She holds his hand the whole walk back, but her heart is pounding in her chest, every beat a reminder.

It’s ruined. She needs to get out, as soon as possible, for real this time. She hopes whatever information they get from her extracurricular excursion proves useful enough that she can check out. She can’t even say before she gets in too deep – she’s already in way over her head. For the first time in her entire career, Annabeth hasn’t been able to keep her emotions tucked away.

“ _Annabeth, our agent is coming towards you. Run into them_.”

Mentally thanking Reyna for the direction, she does as told, passing off the drive into their pocket as she collides with their chest. Percy looks baffled, and she knows why. She’s not clumsy. But that’s twice tonight she’s run into people, him included. She already knows he picks up on peculiar behaviors. Already asked about her interest in Jason.

She presses her hands to her forehead, pinching the bridge of her nose. She needs time to think.

“You sure you’re all right?” Percy asks, suspicion drowned out by pure concern.

“I want to sit for a minute,” Annabeth replies, and she pulls from his hand to make for one of the chairs off to the side.

“ _Chase, you’re reacting_  – ”

“Shut up, I know.” Only after she says it does she realize she just snapped at her superior here, but she thinks, having heard the entire situation, Reyna will understand. The silence on the other end is optimistic, at least.

It’s Piper who finds her. She thinks Percy must have asked her to come check. “Hey, is everything all right? We can bail if you need to.”

She smiles at her friend. Friend. Oh god, if she’s in love with Percy, that means Piper is her friend too. There are too many hearts to break here. “I’m fine, I swear. You guys are being ridiculous.”

Piper grins. “Um, ridiculous is all of our middle names. Collectively.” She squeezes Annabeth’s arm. “We’re here for you though, you know that right?”

Annabeth suddenly feels like crying. Instead, she just smiles. “Yeah, I know.”

And that’s the worst part.


	7. Chapter 7

Annabeth spends the next two days after the gala at Jupiter Industries in a state of contemplation and comes to two conclusions.

1). All her months of dating Percy Jackson have finally gotten a bigger lead into the corporation.

2). She is kind of in love with Percy Jackson.

It wasn’t a sudden realization, like when it crashed into her and nearly knocked her off her foundations. She spent the rest of the night in a bit of a daze that worried her friends, even passed on heading back up to his apartment by the time they left. She was cool and crisp as she ran over the report with Reyna, grateful that the other woman didn’t press against any other personal issues of the night.

She avoids seeing Percy over those two days, and even thinks about ignoring his calls before realizing that doing so after he just admitted he loved her would probably be a bad sign. Normally she’d tell herself to keep in touch because of the mission, but she can’t even deny now the part of her that doesn’t want to hurt him over neglected phone calls.

“Work is busy,” she says with a heavy sigh. It’s not faked. He believes her.

She designs and draws blueprints, doodling in sketchbooks as she runs over reports and analyzes the information she’d managed to steal at the Gala. With the possibility of someone else trying to get into Jupiter Industries’ systems, Annabeth has been working with Leo and Frank both, mulling over potentials and looking into the idea that perhaps the corruption began from the outside rather than the in. Because there  _are_  anomalies, suspicious trade deals and thefts, but none of it has been easily found. It looks too precise, too planted.

“Do you think it’s a set-up?” she asks Frank. She likes putting her head together with his; she overthinks and misses little details that he scoops up and reminds her of.

He makes a thoughtful noise. “If it were any less consistent, I’d disagree, but we should probably keep that in mind.”

She does. And Percy too, Percy is on her mind constantly, even if he’s just lurking in the back. As she crawls into bed, two nights out without seeing him, Annabeth decides she needs to tell him. She needs to come clean, because – because she’s not ready to lose him, even if they have to start over. But she wants to keep Percy Jackson in her life. She texts him quickly about meeting up tomorrow at her favorite lunchtime restaurant, and he replies gleefully with a smiling emote.

-

The next day, Annabeth reaches the restaurant first and looks so utterly determined that the hostess shrinks her shoulders, mildly intimidated. She convinces the woman with a conspiring smile to let her sit outside, at one of the tables in the corner far away from any other patrons. She’s about fifteen minutes early, but Percy is liable to be about five minutes late. It gives her ample time to scope out the setting, to finalize every single thing she wants to tell him and hope that maybe the universe will be on her side today.

Only after she spots him heading over with a dopey grin on her face does her stomach bottom out. What if she loses her job over this? She should have told Reyna ahead of time what she was planning, they could have accounted for this, adjusted her position in the mission, but then Percy sits down across from her and it’s too late for anything else but a smile.

“They finally let you loose, huh?”

Annabeth laughs. More like she finally let herself loose. “Something like that.”

The waitress comes over to take their order, giving Annabeth a subtle nod, and she wonders what the hostess has explained about the situation. Maybe they’re expecting a proposal.

“So. What did you want to talk about?”

She startles, blinking at him over her lemonade. “What?”

He gives her a look, grinning with mocking exasperation. “You get this wrinkle in your forehead when something’s on your mind, and uh, I kind of made an idiot of myself the other night. Figured we’re… gonna talk about something.”

Her chest feels tight. The words tumble out of her before she can stop them, the opposite of her well thought out confession. “Before anything else, you need to know that I do. I love you too, Percy.”

He looks surprised, torn between confusion and joy as his face cracks into a tentative smile. “So, I wasn’t a total idiot?”

She laughs. “No. Not this time.” Her face falls after that, and she spins the glass in her hand. “But there is something I need to tell you. And you’re probably going to hate me for it.”

“Annabeth. There’s  _probably_  nothing you could do that would make me hate you.”

Someone leans on the railing near their table, the shadow crossing over Annabeth’s lap. She looks up and over, ready to glower at the intruder. But her gaze lands on his face, the blonde hair and the scar down his cheek, and her expression twists into one more like horror than annoyance. Percy follows her with concern, eyebrows scrunching as she spits out a greeting.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Luke Castellan grins down at her. “Interrupting what was sure to be a very touching moment. Or a terrible one, if I read the situation right, so maybe you should thank me.”

“Annabeth, who is this?” Percy asks lowly, in tune with her reaction and looking like he’s ready to literally flip the table on the guy.

He holds out his hand. “You must be  _Percy_. Call me Luke. Annabeth and I go way back.”

“Don’t touch him,” she hisses, smacking his hand away as her own curl into fists. Luke holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but his expression warns otherwise, mouth twitching with a smirk, eyes alert and harsh. Annabeth feels the pressure of the knife strapped to her leg and thinks about the gun in her purse.

“And to think, I came all the way out here for a touching reunion,” he sighs.

“What do you want?” Annabeth breathes out in a threat.

“I just told you,” he says, and the smile disappears from his face. “You caught me, now I catch you.”

Percy is watching them with trepidation, not missing a beat even though none of this can possibly make sense to him. The gears turn over in Annabeth’s head, and after a few long seconds, it clicks.

“It was you.”

Luke smirks at her and claps his hands three times, slowly.

Luke Castellan used to work for the same agency. Luke Castellan was her mentor, a partner, someone she looked up to because he was  _good_  at his job and taught her all the tricks of the trade. Luke Castellan betrayed all of them and her, a mole for some corporation, a freelance agent – one who has apparently been trying to sabotage Jupiter Industries these last few months.

“Tell me, Annabeth,” he continues, tilting his head at Percy. “Does he know? Or should I tell him?” She doesn’t answer, and Percy keeps his mouth shut – though one look at him and she knows it’s because he’s trying to put it together on his own. Luke sighs. “You’re good, you know. You always were. I didn’t think anyone would pick up my trail.”

“ _Why are you here_?” Her mind is in overdrive. Why didn’t she bring an earpiece? Why can’t Reyna be listening on the other end?

He taps his fingers on the railing. “I’m doing my job.”

And Annabeth has three seconds to react. In the first second, she realizes why he’s really here, and it hurts her heart a little even now, knowing what he’s capable of. Two seconds, and she knocks her purse to the floor at the same time she grabs Percy’s arm. On the third, she flips the table and yanks Percy down with her behind it just as Luke fires his gun and the bullet goes straight through.

It misses them both, but Percy’s face goes white, and he looks to Annabeth terrified. “I’m so sorry, Percy,” she mutters, and her heart hurts again for the expression on his face, like he has absolutely no idea who she is.

He doesn’t though, does he?

“Annabeth, it’s just a  _table_ ,” Luke taunts, and she can hear him vault over the railing. She grabs her knife and leaps to her feet, catching the tip under his chin just as he has the barrel at her cheek. “You always did like your knives.”

She’s vaguely aware of people screaming, of the other patrons and workers fleeing, save for Percy still at her feet, huddled as close as he can get to the table. “I’m going to slice open your jaw if you don’t get out of here right now,” she spits out.

“That doesn’t sound like fun to me,” he replies, like all of this is a joke to him.

She can’t risk looking down at Percy, but she can’t risk  _Percy_. She holds the standstill for a few more seconds, long enough to get Luke comfortable in it, before she  _moves_. Her other arm comes up, hands moving far too fast for Percy to keep track of, and Luke’s gun goes flying, spinning out across the floor behind her.

Before he can react, she swings her knife, and he ducks back, narrowly avoiding her blow. He reaches for her, and they crash into the table still on its side, sending Percy ducking towards another for cover as Annabeth stumbles over it and Luke uses that momentum to shove her. She hits the ground just in time to see Luke making for Percy, and Annabeth launches herself up, tackling him from the side, and they tumble to the ground.

She can’t say this is the first time she’s gotten into an honest to god fist fight on the job, but it is the first time she’s reacted so violently. She uses her nails, and her punches are steel. She manages to wind him, kneeing him both in the groin and in the chest, and she scrambles for her purse before Percy, pulling him to his feet.

He resists, staring at her wide-eyed, but she doesn’t let him go. “Please, Percy, you need to come with me, you can’t stay here,” she pleads, listening to Luke groan and swear at her. Percy glances at the guy before nodding at her grimly, and then Annabeth just breaks into a run. She’s glad Percy’s in shape from his job, because Luke won’t stay down for long. He’s already climbing to his feet by the time they get over the railing and sprint down the street.

“ _Annabeth_ ,” Percy says, his voice hard and warning.

“Annabeth!” comes Luke’s harsh voice two seconds later, and she doesn’t know which tone makes her feel worse. They need to get somewhere _safe_ , but she has no idea how much Luke has managed to track down, especially if he could find her at a goddamn café. Does he know where she’s living? Does she know where  _Percy_  lives? He was never meant to be in danger.

She drags Percy sharply down a tight alley, pushing him in front of her. She glances over her shoulder every few seconds, taking a completely hazardous route. Without Luke in sight, she shoves Percy down behind a dumpster and gives him her purse after taking out the gun inside. “Find my phone. Find the contact  _Bellona_  and text the word  _Kronos_ , with a K.”

“What –”

“Just do it!”

She doesn’t give him time to argue, dashing off towards the end of the alley with her gun out but low, not wanting to draw any attention to herself should anyone be watching. Luke turns at the end, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I hadn’t expected something complicated.”

Annabeth fires the gun, shooting him in the leg. Luke stumbles and cries out, looking genuinely surprised, but she looks at him hard, and she wonders if she has it in her to kill him if she needed to. She just hopes Percy’s texted as necessary, that Reyna’s already sent the reinforcements. They set that code in place the day after Luke betrayed them all.

Luke’s got his own gun back, and she curses herself for not snatching it up during her escape. “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asks, teasing emphasis on the word. Like he knows the treachery.

She grits her teeth. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever you’re after, I’m going to stop you.” It’s the stupidest, dumbest and most cliché thing she could possibly say, but she means every word.

He lowers the gun, and she hadn’t expected it. It catches her off guard enough that when he suddenly charges at her, there’s a reaction delay. Her gun soars from her hand, and they grapple for about a minute – elbows and limbs, bruises on her ribs that are sure to appear tomorrow –  before she kicks him in the gunshot wound to get away. He falls over with the pain, and she kicks him again in the side, oblivious to the blood that’s gotten all over her skirt from their scuffle. She finds her gun again, then brings the butt of it down hard on Luke’s head. It doesn’t knock him out, but it dazes him.

She runs back down the alley and yanks Percy up again, hoping he doesn’t feel too much like a ragdoll. He’s still holding her phone, and he manages to steal a glance at Luke on the ground before she’s pulling him away towards the other end of the alley.

“The text back says something about titanium. I think,” he offers, his voice very, very cool.

“Titanomachy?” she asks, trying to keep her own even.

“Beats me,” he replies with an ounce of spite as they burst out of the alley.

Annabeth doesn’t stop moving, even when someone calls out and asks if she’s all right, which is about when Percy notices the blood all over her clothes and when she notices her lip is busted; he looks torn between wild worry and totally terrified. “What the hell, Annabeth?”

She doesn’t answer, looking back at Luke, where he’s started trying to stumble to his feet. “I’m sorry – I’m sorry, Percy, just, I’ll explain, I promise.” It feels sort of empty, because while she expected things to go badly when she decided to meet with him today, she hadn’t expected this caliber of it. Her phone rings, the name flashing as Bellona, and she shoves it to her ear. “Percy is with me,” she says desperately into the phone without so much as a hello. “Please tell me there’s more of a plan than I beat Luke unconscious.”

Reyna’s voice is steady on the other end, and Annabeth basks in it. “There will be a car to take you and the boy to a safehouse. Other agents are on the way, they should be able to intervene. We want Castellan in custody, not dead.”

“I know. I know, he – he’s the one we’re after, he just  _found_  me –”

“Annabeth,” Reyna cuts in, stern but calming. “The car is at the end of the street. Give your report once you and Jackson are safe.”

“Okay.”

She drags Percy down the block, steadfastly avoiding his eyes and feeling the wedge between them grow with each step she takes, despite how tightly he’s holding her hand. She imagines it’s out of fear more than anything else. She did just shoot a man in front of him.

The car flashes its turn signal four times before going silent, and Annabeth picks up the pace. Her name echoes down the street, Luke calling out at her furious. People panic at his state, and she hears him fire his gun again, which just sets off more screaming. Without hesitation, she slams both herself and Percy to the ground as the car door flies open and Frank tumbles out.

“Get in the car!” he snaps, and he starts to skulk in the opposite direction.

“Don’t you dare! Reyna said others are on the way!” But even as she yells at her friend, she’s dragging Percy towards the car and shoving him inside. She climbs in behind him and slams the door shut, pushing him to the floor as she peers through the tinted windows. There’s no sign of Frank, but she does see Luke. Then she sees two agents sweep in, and Luke turns his attention on them.

Someone climbs into the driver’s seat, and Annabeth hauls the gun forward, but she sighs with relief when she finds Frank back inside with them. He barely wastes any time before the car is moving; it’s a little over the speed limit, but nothing that will draw attention.

“We’ve got people sweeping your homes,” Frank offers, after about a minute of dead silence. Percy continues to drown in that silence, and it’s the quietest she’s ever heard him stay. He curls up against the door, keeping his distance. Annabeth finally allows her adrenaline to die down, and she tilts her head against the window as Frank continues to drive them all towards a safehouse.

It’s all very mechanical, by the time they get there. Reyna is waiting for them, and she has Frank direct Percy towards the bathroom and a bedroom while Annabeth gives her report on what went down. She is exhausted and hurt, but Reyna does have good news – they caught Luke and he’s been transported to a holding facility.

“Does he know where Percy lives?” is her first question.

“It’s unclear,” Reyna replies, and for once, her tone holds a shade of sympathy. “We’ve got people watching his apartment, as well as his mother’s and Piper’s, and both her and Jason’s jobs. We’ll know if any of them are being watched as soon as possible.”

Annabeth nods mutely. Standard protocol, nothing she hasn’t been part of before. Except the whole being in love with Percy thing.

“Annabeth,” Reyna starts, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Go wash up. Change your clothes. I’ll call someone to tend to any wounds. We’ve got this under control.”

She obeys, only because it’s easier than thinking about whatever happens when she comes face to face with Percy again. She nods grimly at Frank, and he gestures at the closed door behind which she knows Percy is hiding away. Undoubtedly Frank’s given him the appropriate protocol for that too.

He doesn’t leave the room, and she doesn’t see him, though Frank tells her he poked his head out and inquired about something to eat. She laughs in spite of herself, and she hopes it’s a sign that this entire situation hasn’t done anything truly traumatic to him. It’s pretty much the only hope she has right now.

A few hours later, Reyna reports no unusual activity from any of their watchposts, though given Luke  _is_  the issue at Jupiter Industries, they haven’t given the all clear on the Jackson-Grace apartment yet. They’ve managed to get Jason out of the house with Piper for the night as a precaution, but from the sound of it thus far, it seems like Luke was more about the talk than the walk, at least outside of screwing with Jupiter Industries. It’s common knowledge Jason has very little to do with his father’s business, which helps.

They discover it was her apartment that Luke found, the one she’d been set up in for the mission, and it’s likely he just trailed her from there. It unsettles her, but at least it gives her a sense that she was the actual target, not Percy.

By the time the evening rolls around, Percy’s been given the all clear to go back to his house. Annabeth and Frank are to accompany him, but she’s not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. The entire drive  _and_  the walk to the apartment is heavy with silence, and Frank takes charge out in the hallway, setting up a few extra security measures while Annabeth escorts Percy inside.

“Where’s Jason?” is the first thing he asks, the first thing he’s said to her in hours.

“With Piper,” she says softly, and he whirls on her, looking more angry and hurt than he’s ever seen. “He’s safe.”

“Am  _I_?”

“You wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been secured.” She is mechanical and ready to burst at once.

He stares at her, long and hard. She abruptly thinks about the penguins at the zoo and wishes it had truly been a chance encounter. Her posture is stiff, her face drawn as blank as she can manage, but Percy seems to read her despite that.  He starts to pace, and she flinches when he storms passed her, aggressively pouring himself a glass of water.

The air between them is a fuse. The second she opens her mouth, she will ignite it, so she keeps quiet, as though she can stop it from being lit in the first place.

Percy does it for her. He slams his hands on the countertop, and Annabeth’s expression breaks, just like the air crackles.

“What the  _hell_  is going on, Annabeth?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and with this update, everything that's been written thus far has been archived here on ao3! no promises on when more will come, but i do plan on at least two more parts!

**Author's Note:**

> so this is an au that was started on tumblr, probably about a year ago by this point! i'll slowly be archiving what's been written up onto ao3 now too, as a sort of collection set in this universe c: 
> 
> it'll jump around a bit - it wasn't originally written with any set structure/set chapter plan, but i just kept writing more parts to it, so here we are!


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